Almost all technical problems arise from social constraints, if you think about it.
–
Stuart P. BentleyJul 11 '14 at 14:33

37

Those comments were ridiculous and the close reason completely inappropriate. I've removed all of those comments and am frowning in the direction of the close voters.
–
Brad Larson♦Jul 11 '14 at 14:40

3

I personally think this is not a reason to close as it is still a valid question, however I do think it is a fair reason to down-vote if one feels the op is demanding a ridiculous technical solution due to a broken business system.
–
ValityJul 11 '14 at 16:20

4

@Vality I personally wouldn't downvote this, but I agree and applaud you for noting that close voting shouldn't be used simply when you don't like the premise of a question.
–
AaronLSJul 11 '14 at 16:49

1

I would like to express my warm thanks to @BradLarson for taking this up on meta; I really appreciate his involvement. I was quite frustrated at the question's closure, but seeing that the community at large can still reach a sensible consensus has rehabilitated my attitude towards SO.
–
DouglasJul 12 '14 at 15:07

2 Answers
2

I consider the first comment to be fundamentally flawed. It is a technical issue because of the social (business) issue. As one of the commenters says, this happens in real life: you need to apply a technical fix within tight constraints. In this case the technical problem is how to shape/massage/filter the data to fit the expected requirement. It's a fact of life that in the commercial world you can't always change the universe to fit your preferred view of it; often you have to work with what you've got.

In any case this sort of question closing happens occasionally - where a bunch of people deem a question needs to be closed, then another bunch of people take a longer look at it and decide it should be reopened.

Thanks, always reassuring to have meta swoop in and do a sanity check.
–
Brad KochJul 11 '14 at 1:55

7

I've seen it happen a many times where "mob mentality" takes over. All it takes is for one person to comment why they think a post is not suitable and subsequent readers will just agree or throw their votes behind that view rather than evaluate it for themselves. Maybe I'm being a little harsh and it's more like a subconscious nudge in the first objector's direction but it definitely happens frequently.
–
indivisibleJul 11 '14 at 16:23

4

Agree, the distinction being that the user is not asking us to help solve the social problem, they are asking for help solving the technical problem.
–
AaronLSJul 11 '14 at 16:47

@indivisible it's better for a question to get closed too soon and then reopened than for it to stay open too long and attract answers that prevent auto-deletion. Reopening even pushes the question to the front page again. But yes, mob mentality does sometimes happen.
–
Jan DvorakJul 13 '14 at 16:21

@indivisible another skew that you may have been subjected to - a close vote or a flag pushes the question into the close vote queue, which guarantees five more views from people who are specifically asked if the question should be closed.
–
Jan DvorakJul 13 '14 at 16:26

@JanDvorak, I see no issue with your second comment/point. Isn't that exactly what the Close Vote Flags & Queue are designed to do? I also don't necessarily disagree with your first point about over closing vs under closing questions. I was merely mentioning a trend I'd observed in the past. I've no strong opinions whether or not it is a net benefit or detriment to the site(s) overall. Both could be easily argued.
–
indivisibleJul 13 '14 at 16:37

@JanDvorak: That is the kind of attitude that bothers me. Is it really more important for the site to be free of non-auto-deleteable questions, than to foster a sense of community where newer (or established) members can feel comfortable asking questions without getting voted off? The feedback I get from new users of StackOverflow is that this site has become too hostile; and repeatedly getting their questions closed off for silly reasons eventually throws them off from participating further (and contributing to its growth).
–
DouglasJul 13 '14 at 22:40

Sometimes people post questions and they imply there's some social/business/technical reason for not doing something, but they never state what that reason is. It's often important to know that reason in order to write an answer that meets the needs of the person asking the question. Otherwise you write an answer that you think will be a solid, usable solution. But then it turns out you wasted your time because they didn't let you know all the limitations.

I don't think it warrants a closing for not having provided those details up front, but I will downvote a question if someone went through the effort of posting a good solution that was nullified by hidden requirements. And of course, I leave a comment saying that they need to express the question as completely as reasonably possible up front in order to receive a good solution.

In this case, the question should have not been closed, and I appreciate they said the schema can't be modified up front. But then if you note the comment below by the asker:

I can create new objects, constraints, triggers, etc. I cannot alter
the columns of the existing tables (which will continue being inserted
to and updated).

That's the type of thing that I think should have been included in the question up front had the question been fully thought through. On one hand, he says he can't change the schema, but then he says he can change objects, constraints, triggers. Wikipedia defines schema as:

I agree that saying "I cannot change the schema" was incorrect and potentially misleading; I actually meant to say "I cannot make breaking changes to the schema". I've since corrected the question per this post.
–
DouglasJul 12 '14 at 15:10

@Douglas But my issue isn't specifically with your question. It's that people often leave out these key details, yours just happened to serve as a convenient example. Unfortunately, I don't see a good solution for getting people to include all relevant details. But maybe someone else will have an idea...
–
masonJul 12 '14 at 15:16

1

Like you, I tend to downvote careless questions that are amended to introduce new (formerly hidden) requirements that nullify the validity of posted answers. If the question is still fresh and I anticipate an ambiguity in its details, I would do what mrjoltcola did and post a comment asking for clarification.
–
DouglasJul 12 '14 at 15:27

However, whilst I agree with your stand, I need to clarify that this issue wasn't the reason behind the question's former close. The members who voted for closing disagreed with my restriction on breaking changes.
–
DouglasJul 12 '14 at 15:30